


with your boots beneath my bed

by oftirnanog



Series: forever is the sweetest con [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Fluff, M/M, Matching Sock and Tie Sets, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28920774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oftirnanog/pseuds/oftirnanog
Summary: Dean’s not sure how it happens, exactly, but before he knows it he has a drawer filled with novelty socks and Cas has a rack full of ties to match them.In which Dean gets Cas his own wardrobe, they end up with a collection of matching ties and socks, and they celebrate Christmas in the bunker. It's straight fluff y'all.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Series: forever is the sweetest con [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082891
Comments: 29
Kudos: 105





	with your boots beneath my bed

**Author's Note:**

> so over on twitter @mishcollins had the terrible thought of dean wearing his ridiculous novelty socks and cas having the ties to match and this thought burrowed its way into my brain and would not let me go. so here it is. a little vignette in my post-canon 'verse that is entirely about how dean and cas come to own a collection of matching novelty socks and ties that they wear at the same time so they can match like the adorable dorks that they are. there is zero plot to be found unless the procuring of socks and ties qualifies as plot. apologies for the excess sappiness right at the end. it couldn't be helped.
> 
> title from, you guessed, 'cowboy like me.' i am forever indebted to ms. swift

Dean’s not sure how it happens, exactly, but before he knows it he has a drawer filled with novelty socks and Cas has a rack full of ties to match them.

It starts when he finally takes Cas shopping for clothes of his own. 

Even though Dean has told Cas to help himself to whatever he wants from Dean’s wardrobe, Cas tends to stick to his old trench coat get-up on the days when his grace is present and accounted for. Cas insists that he doesn’t mind—comfort is not an issue when he’s got his mojo—and Dean knows he’s not lying about that, but he still thinks it would be nice for Cas to have clothes of his own. It might let him figure out his own style for when he actually has to start wearing something fresh every day. 

Cas doesn’t relent until he goes three days without so much as a whisper of grace and discovers that he can’t fit into Dean’s jeans. Dean wants Cas to have some options, so they drive up to Grand Island to hit up the mall. He figures they can make a day of it. 

Cas takes Dean’s lead on the basics like jeans and t-shirts. Dean grabs a couple multi-packs of boxer briefs and socks, and picks out some henleys. He suggests a few flannels for Cas to try, but Cas rejects all of them in favour of colours that Dean would have called garish until Cas put them on. Even then he can’t tell if Cas is actually managing to make it work, or if Dean is just so hopelessly attracted to him that he’d think he looks good no matter what he’s wearing. He suspects it’s the latter. They buy the hideous flannels anyway. 

When Cas gets around to trying on dress pants and some nicer button-down shirts, Dean stares at him for a solid minute when he comes out of the dressing room. Cas has to gesture at himself and ask, “What do you think?” before Dean can collect himself enough to clear his throat and say, “Good. Really good. You look good.” Cas raises his eyebrows and flushes a bit, but looks very smug when he comes back out after changing. 

They’re wandering through the mall, bags in hand, eating the last bites of the soft pretzels that Dean claimed were a necessary part of the shopping mall experience, when Cas spots a small store selling ties. He makes a small noise of interest and then tugs at Dean’s shirt sleeve to get him to follow.

“You know you don’t need to wear ties anymore, right?” Dean says, through a mouthful of pretzel.

“I like ties,” Cas says. 

Dean, who hates wearing ties, gives Cas a bemused look and leaves him to it. It isn’t until Cas decides to pick out the most basic ties in existence that Dean offers up his opinion.

“You’re going with those?” he asks, gesturing at the two ties Cas is holding. One is maroon with navy blue stripes and the other is a dark blue nearly identical to the one he already owns. 

“What’s wrong with these?” Cas asks with a frown.

“They’re kinda boring,” Dean says. “And this one is the same as the one you’re wearing.”

“No it has dots,” Cas says, holding it up for Dean to see better. It does, indeed, have small grey dots, though the effect is so subtle Dean wonders why they bothered.

“C’mon, man, you’ve got the whole wide world of ties available to you in here!” he sweeps his hand in front of him as best he can while still holding a bag of clothes. “Have some fun.”

Dean looks around the store and spots one that catches his eye. “Look,” he says, putting the bags down for a moment so he can fetch the tie in question. It’s black with tiny repeating pine trees and a couple sasquatches scattered throughout. He holds it out to Cas. “See?”

Cas eyes it dubiously. 

“Or, here.” Dean hands him another, this one navy with pink flamingos. He seems somewhat more amenable to that one. “Or at least get some paisley or florals or _something_ ,” Dean adds. “Anything but those plain ones. If you want plain ties, I have plenty you can just have. I never wear them. And I think I have that exact tie.” Dean points to the striped maroon one. 

Cas puts back all the ties except the one with the flamingos, then continues his browsing. He ends up settling on just one other tie, another navy blue one, but this one is printed with constellations. 

While Cas pays for the ties, Dean browses through a spinning rack of novelty socks. He doesn’t like wearing ties, but he does like ridiculous socks, so when he finds two pairs that match the patterns on Cas’s ties perfectly, he can’t _not_ buy them.

Cas gives him an inquiring look when he lays the socks on the counter to pay. “Is it customary to buy matching socks?”

“They’re for me,” Dean says, slipping the socks into one of the bags they already have. “Now we’ll match.”

He means it mostly as a joke, but the look Cas gives him is so soft and pleased that Dean shifts all the bags he’s carrying to one hand just so he can hold Cas’s hand with the other. Maybe it was less of a joke than he realized. A pleasant, buzzing warmth settles in Dean’s belly at the prospect of them matching, even in the most subtle way.

And just like they have two matching sock and tie sets between them.

Dean thinks Donna will get a kick out of it, so when they go to visit her, he gets Cas to wear the flamingo tie and Dean wears the matching socks. Sure enough Donna lets out a delighted laugh and claps her hands together, proclaiming, “Oh fun! I never guessed you’d be the matchy kind of couple.” Dean absolutely does not blush, especially not when Cas plants a kiss on his cheek. 

The next thing Dean knows, it’s three weeks later and Donna has sent them a package. ( _Consider it an early Christmas gift,_ reads the card inside.) He and Cas open it together and find a pair of red socks patterned with little hamburgers and a tie to match. Of course, they make the mistake of opening it at one of the tables in the library, so Sam and Eileen wander in right when Dean is holding the tie up to Cas’s chest. They tease them mercilessly for it. 

Dean doesn’t even try to pretend he doesn’t love this gift. Instead he immediately changes into the socks and waits for Cas to get the tie knotted around his neck so he can arrange them for a picture. He positions Cas in front of the table, then lifts his leg so it’s bent in front of Cas in a somewhat suggestive position. He uses Cas for balance and hikes his jeans up above his ankle. Eileen takes the picture for them, still laughing. She keeps them there until she’s satisfied with the results, and even manages to capture the moment just after Dean puts his leg back down and tugs on Cas’s tie to pull him forward for a kiss. That one Dean keeps for himself. For Donna he picks one where his own smile is wide with laughter and Cas is looking at the camera, shyly pleased. 

It isn’t until Christmas, two weeks later, that Dean realizes this is going to be a thing now. 

It’s the first Christmas in ages that they’re actually celebrating, so Eileen buys the four of them stockings and they each contribute to filling them. They open them in the library over coffee that Dean makes festive with a splash of Irish cream. Sam surprises him by telling him it’s delicious instead of giving him shit for it. 

At the very bottom of Dean’s stocking he finds two pairs of socks. One pair is green with little red Santa hats and the other is red with strings of Christmas lights. He doesn’t make the connection right away because Cas is taking his time with his own stocking, marvelling over every item he pulls from it. Dean, who emptied the entirety of his stocking in about ten minutes, watches him the whole time. 

He forgets, sometimes, the things that Cas has never experienced. Dean’s own holiday experiences might be thin on ground, but he has hazy memories of being three and getting a proper Christmas. He has a few more of hastily thrown together Christmases in nondescript motel rooms, and of the one he and Sammy had before he went to Hell. But Cas doesn’t even have that. So he examines each item with care. Even the toothbrush that Dean stuck in there. It makes something ache in Dean’s chest. He has half a mind to pull Cas into his lap, but that would interrupt Cas’s process, so he settles for resting his arm across the back of the chair, leaning into Cas’s space as much as he can without being in the way. 

When Cas finally gets to the bottom of his stocking, he pulls out two ties. Dean is surprised for about half a second to find that they match his socks. Then he starts laughing. 

“What?” Cas asks, looking confused.

Dean holds up his socks for Cas to see. Cas smiles wide enough that his eyes crinkle at the corners. 

“We didn’t even plan that,” Eileen says. “I bought the Santa hats and Sam bought the lights.”

“Wait, you bought them separately?” Dean asks. He lets out a another burst of laughter when Eileen nods.

“You’re already that couple,” Sam says.

Dean’s still laughing, delighted by this development. Then Cas turns to him with a look so fond that Dean has no choice but to kiss him. 

There are a few more gifts tucked under the tree, but Dean decides they need to eat something first. He and Eileen take charge of cooking breakfast while Sam makes another pot of coffee. Cas insists on helping with breakfast, so Dean walks him through mixing waffle batter until the process devolves into Dean distracting him by dropping kisses onto the back of his neck and Eileen kicks them out of the kitchen. 

After they’ve eaten their fill of waffles and sausages and a fruit salad that Sam snuck in after Dean had been kicked out, they turn to the gifts under the tree. The first one Dean grabs is one for him and Cas. He passes the attached card to Cas. 

“ _Saw these and thought of you. Love, Jody_ ,” Cas reads.

Dean opens the box and immediately starts laughing. Inside is a pale blue tie with a snowflake pattern and socks to match. 

Cas looks at Dean in surprise. “How did she know?”

“Donna, probably,” Dean says. His face hurts from smiling so much and he has to wipe his eyes where they’ve started to water with laughter.

“How many do you have now?” Sam asks. He’s never going to stop teasing them about this, Dean can tell. 

“Six, I think,” Cas replies. “That’s a lot, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s cute,” Eileen insists, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

“Wait, hold on,” Sam says, turning back to the tree. “There’s another one under here for both of you. It’s from Claire.”

Dean lets Cas open this one and sure enough it’s another tie and sock set. This one is the sasquatch design that Cas had rejected at the mall and Dean nearly falls out of his chair laughing. Cas looks somewhat disgruntled by this one and turns a frown on Dean.

“Did you tell her?” Cas asks. 

“No,” Dean manages to say as he regains control of his laughter. “She probably just thought it was funny. Because we hunt monsters.”

Cas’s frown disappears and he lets out an exasperated huff of laughter. “I guess it is kind of funny.”

“The closest to a hunter-themed set we’re gonna get,” Dean agrees. He places a hand on either side of Cas’s face and pulls him into a kiss. 

Sam and Eileen let them keep going until one of Cas’s hands slides up Dean’s thigh, at which point Sam clears his throat and says, “Okay, keep it PG.”

Cas pulls back, looking sheepish with a wonderful pink tinge on his cheeks. Dean smiles until his face hurts and then keeps smiling, every inch the cat that caught the canary. Everyday there’s a moment like this, when he looks at Cas and the reality of it truly settles over him. And every time his chest feels fit to burst. Because he gets to have this. Somehow, against all odds, this is his life now. He’s probably entitled, having saved the world two or three or seven times, but he never thought it would happen. Not really. He always figured he’d die bloody. And maybe he still will, but he’ll have gotten to have this first. He gets to wake up in the morning to Cas, warm and rumpled in his bed. He gets to hold his hand when they go for walks. Gets to steal kisses whenever he wants. He gets to build a life with him. And that knowledge, when it hits him like it does now, staggers him every single time. 

Overwhelmed, Dean lets his head fall to Cas’s shoulder, nose bumping against his collarbone, and Cas leans his head against him. He brings his hand up to soothe a thumb over the hinge of Dean’s jaw.

“So, who wants mimosas?” Eileen says, probably realizing that if one of them doesn’t break into Cas and Dean’s bubble, they’ll just stay like that for the rest of the day. 

Dean tilts his head so he can look at her, but doesn’t move away from Cas’s shoulder. “Definitely.”

Later—after a lazy day of cards and Christmas movies, after Eileen makes them model their new socks and ties, after turkey and potatoes and pie, after drinks that leave them pleasantly buzzed, after Dean has divested himself of the tie Cas insisted he wear so they could make use of both Christmas-themed sets—Dean and Cas have the kind of uninhibited, joyful sex that leaves them both laughing with elation. 

It hits Dean all over again, the improbability of it. This angel, this man, whatever he is now, his best friend falling asleep against him at the closing of what might just be a perfect day. It’s the kind of thing that would have terrified him once. But as he lays there, watching the gentle rise and fall of Cas’s chest, he finds that it doesn’t anymore. And that's something like a Christmas miracle. 

**Author's Note:**

> i have been uncharacteristically prolific with this series over the past month and i don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. i will absolutely keep adding to this as inspiration strikes and i already have vague notions of what the next bit will entail, but it's probably gonna slow down from here. part of that is starting a new job and working on a personal writing project for school, and part of it is that i've become obsessed with the possibilities provided by the notion that dean and cas have been banging since season 9 (you know what i'm talking about). so that may occupy all of my attention as i try to hammer it into something resembling a fully-fledged fic. until then, i hope you enjoy this small offering!


End file.
